First Day of Housekeeping and “Middle Earth”/Fern Ledge? Hike

I reported to Half Dome Village for my first day of housekeeping. Man oh man, let me tell you, it was so much fun. Not. Not even a little. Between the turnovers, departures, and my personal favorites—the stayovers, I had a jam-packed day of anything but excitement. I did, however, learn that the uncomfortable hat-wearing is optional, and our sweet manager Sabas lets us listen to music AND roll up our khaki pants into kapris (male and female) because it is hooooooottttttttt (especially if you’re cleaning a tent cabin with a heater that the guests used and forgot to turn off…).  Let me walk you through the housekeeping process (you’re going to love it—I swear):

Get your clipboard with your assignments, your master keys for the huts, and fill up your cart from the linen hut with everything you could possibly need for the day and more.

A Departure Clean—used for Turnovers (priority—do first!!!) and Departs

1) check bear box to see if there’s anything there—this is generally a good way to tell if your guests are still in the room or not. If there’s trash, pick it up.

2) Bang on door, announce yourself, and unlock.

3) fold blankets and stack on chair

4) remove towels and linens from bed and place in linen bag

5) attain proper fitted sheets, ensuring they aren’t rejects (dirty, stained, or holy)

     a) if a reject, keep trying until you get a good one

     b) place all rejects in a separate bag to be returned to the cleaner

6) stack blankets on the foot of bed

7) stack fitted sheet on top of blankets

8) put pillowcase on pillows, folding the ends in like an unsealed envelope

9) empty the recycling and trash bins into the big bags on your cart

     a) replace bags if necessary

10) attain proper number of towels and do a rolled trifold

11) attain proper number of cups

12) spray disinfectant all over the floor

13) mop it up

14) lock the door and cross it off your list, noting if you have any items that need to be taken to the lost and found, if the safe was locked, or if there are any maintenance concerns

Stayovers—used for people…staying over

1) Bang on the door, announce yourself, and unlock

2) Check the towels and replace if necessary

3) Check the garbage/recycling and empty if necessary

4) Lock the door and cross it off your list.

Now do you see why Stayovers are so much better? Yeah, me too. I was fortunate enough to get all of my turnovers and the majority of my departures done before lunch around 12:45, so my afternoon flew by. One of the trickiest parts was finding the dang huts on my list.The numerical system makes sense for the most part, but there are times where I could not find a couple of the huts. One hut took me fifteen whole minutes to find because it was off by itself with its back to everything else, so the number wasn’t visible. Stupid 742, what a pain…I finished early so Sabas had me go help Shelby, who had a tough load. Shelby is the other lifeguard that’s here stuck in housekeeping with me until the pool is open. Fridays are usually pretty busy, Saturdays are kind of “relaxed” and Sundays suck. Every staff member always works Sunday! (I anticipate it being terrible.)

So after I got off at 5:00, after I grabbed some food (a grilled cheese kid’s meal—solely so I could have a fruit cup and chocolate milk), my friends and I decided against the hike we had planned because we thought it’d take too long, and instead had Abby’s roommate Val take us on a different one. Boy oh boy, that was sure interesting. Another questionable life decision by Bethany. It was an off-the-beaten path trail, complete with cairns left by who I deem—crazy people. Less of a hike, more of a climb-the-rocks-and-don’t-miss-a-step-by-a-single-inch-for-fear-of-death journey. It was also a race against the clock to get back down before we ran completely out of light. Val called it Middle Earth. We ended up on a ledge by Yosemite Fall, and it was spectacular; I will 100% admit that. The view was great, I was just petrified about 85% of the time. I believe John Muir referred to this point as Fern Ledge, but don’t quote me. The description is his book sounds pretty accurate though.

 on the way up

from a ledge on the way up

 

"Middle Earth"

 The "Look I'm Alive and Made it Up Here" Grin :)

Clockwise: Bethany, Val, Andi, Abby

Also, we all made it back alive and before a flashlight was desperately needed to see. Now, seeing as how I was exhausted before supper, I am about to fall over tired, so I’ll post this in the morning.

I forgot to mention that when I arrived in the housekeeping building in the morning that I walked in, stood there uncomfortably having no idea what was going on, and one of the guys goes, “So you’re new here huh?” Apparently it was pretty obvious…

I cannot wait for Memorial Day!!!